John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama's "you know what" on Wednesday night.

I thought he said "whip" instead of kick, if memory serves.

I'd hoped Obama would go harder after McCain than he did, but he probably figured he could coast and still carry the day, at this point. It's too bad, because McCain was wide open, and that ghastly leer of his that passes for a smile, good lord -- you could almost see the canary feathers flitting out of McCain's mouth each time he smiled.

McCain trying to attack Obama's eloquence and then using "health" as an example of it was funny -- even McCain's diehard pit bulls know what "health" is.

Obama kept his cool, which was all he really needed to do.

I hope McCain loses his temper tonight. I think that would be terribly sweet in the face of Obama's cool bearing, and will play very well with the "erratic" meme flitting around McCain's head for most of this campaign.

McCain's whole political career has depended on the media's love affair with him, with the collective mainstream media averting its gaze whenever McCain screwed up; how fitting that the more exposure he gets, the worse he looks. McCain can't help but wither under close scrutiny. That's been his biggest failing -- peddling 20th century faux-fixes to faux-problems in a 21st century America in dire need of an actual leader, versus a puffed-up mythical maverick. He started out this race with a rotten hand, and he's only made it worse.

"Four more years?" How about "three more weeks?"

This is going to be the GOP's last stand in this election -- fuel voter fraud hysteria as a way of delegitimizing an Obama win ("He 'stole' the election!"); active voter suppression drives at the polls on Election Day with corrupt election officials, machine "undercounts" and "errors", and with partisan agents at the polls to try to harass and drive away non-Republican voters; and I wouldn't put it past the GOP to demand a recount in the event of a McCain loss, as a last-ditch effort to poison this election.

I mean, once you've branded your opponent a "terrorist" and "traitor," the rest kind of just falls into place, doesn't it? That gives you a sense of the electoral mindset of the hardcore GOP partisan.

It's testament to the remaining power of voting, and to the expanding diversity of the electoral franchise in America that the Republicans work so hard to subvert it at every turn -- they recognize the demographic writing is on the wall for them.

If the GOP worked half as hard pursuing policies that would help the poor and minority voters as they do trying to keep them from voting, they'd have no worries. It says everything about where their hard little hearts are that they choose this course of action.

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Shame on NPR for letting that go unchallenged. American journalists from coast to coast need desperately to learn the art of the follow-up question. Follow up, people. Please! Listen to BBC reporters if you need pointers on how to do it. When some chucklehead throws something out like Schmidt did, just follow up on it, force them to go on the line with their bullshit.

The sad fact of it is that McCain/Palin have been the ones stoking the hate speech, lighting the demagogic fires to try to re-inflate their sagging hot air balloon; Obama hasn't had to do that, has made electoral hay by just countering and offering defense as needed, and moving forward with his politics of hope and rational centrism. Sorry, but there is no such thing as "fanatical moderation" -- it just doesn't play that way.

Maybe the GOP will take advantage of the big turnouts at Obama events to hire shills to turn up and be all hate-speechlike at Obama rallies, just to offer some evidence of it (sort of a man-on-the-street variant of the Jeff Gannon approach to journalism). It'd be risky, but they might be able to get some party faithful to turn up and start hate-speaking.

But then, the problem with that approach is that such speech would immediately stand out as exceptional and uncharacteristic of Obama's supporters, and would be loudly challenged by Obama's people, and challenged by Obama. So that's another right-wing tactic down the drain.

Sorry, couldn't hear McCain with his head inside the lion's open mouth. Yeah, he's got'em right where he wants him, alright.

The only ace cards the GOP has left is a highly politicized and cynical White House lame duck who's not above staging some October Surprise to derail the election, and/or a voter fraud-and-suppression drive by the GOP to try to disenfranchise enough voters to make McCain competitive again.

Beyond that, nothing else up their sleeves. That those things are even possible, however, is a worrisome trend. It's a pretty simple idea, though -- if the GOP wins, the rest of the country loses.

That calculus should hopefully get enough voters out to push Obama to victory, and shut the door on the Bush Years. However, as a hateful little partisan core, the Republicans are still going to be a blight on our political system, unlikely to change their ideological tune, just likely to repackage it like they did with "intelligent design." Same snake oil, different packaging -- that's Republican-style change.

So, even if/when Obama wins, the GOP is still going to be waging war on the rest of the country. It's not over, yet.

If Blago goes down, that's potentially good for Illinois, because the ILL GOP is mostly belly-up and floundering, and if/when Obama wins next month, Blago would be empowered to name Obama's Senatorial successor -- and might be tempted to name himself to try to give himself another chance politically, since his name is mostly mud in-state. But if Blago's under investigation from the feds, then that'll surely keep him from having that particular escape route.